Death's Hand Arrested
by LazerTH
Summary: Sonic, Tails and their friend Lazer fight to save Mobius from an evil lich!
1. Mercia

DEATH'S HAND ARRESTED

A Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction by LazerTH

Author's note:

When I began writing Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction in 2001 I never thought I'd publish nine stories. With the help of Wingless Rain and others, I have enjoyed creating my own version of Mobius over the years. Here at last is the tenth story, continuing the adventures of Lazer and his family.

Disclaimers:

Sonic, Tails, etc. belong to Sega. Lazer, Rebecca, etc. are mine. The Harlequin belongs to Wingless Rain.

888

The universe is a lot larger and stranger than you think. For every choice there is a consequence. Each choice leaves behind unchosen ones, which create their own timelines. As a planet moving through time, Mobius is a fourth-dimensional object, so it leaves behind three-dimensional shadows while it slowly orbits its star.

A long time ago, there was a cosmic entity who was faced with a choice. One of the choices created a timeline where Chaos Emeralds were never united in the seven Super Emeralds. As such, thousands if not millions of these lesser Chaos Emeralds existed in the air, land and seas of the little blue planet. The Master Emerald was still housed within Angel Island, keeping it aloft, and Knuckles the Echidna had sold the seven Super Emeralds to purchase the entire airborne country.

While Knuckles enjoyed the best real estate in the skies above Mobius, on the ground below there was perpetual war in Mercia between the humans and non-humans; the latter faction identifying itself with fur, scales, claws, wings, horns, or tails. Their warfare was centred on the Emerald Lake; a vast green body of water whose glittering depths held a seemingly inexhaustible supply of lesser Chaos Emeralds and Power Rings.

Tails flew the Tornado above Mercia and through the clouds. They were smoky, ashen clouds polluted by the fog of war below. He had gambled with this shortcut because he was delivering a package to Princess Sally. This particular cargo could not wait the extra hours it would take to avoid the warzone. He was flying way above conventional service ceilings, and he didn't have a pressurised cabin or oxygen because such trifles never bothered him.

The magnetic repulsor shield was doing a good job repelling the antiaircraft rounds, which zinged harmlessly away from his beloved red and yellow biplane. He was, however, having problems with the flurry of surface-to-air missiles that both warring sides had fired at him. They were terribly clumsy things - Tails had designed better ones as a toddler - but nonetheless they had locked onto the heat signature from Tornado's afterburners.

"That's bad!" he yelled, but the missiles didn't care for his feelings and continued following. He released chaff but only four-fifths of the missiles were diverted. The other one-fifth could still kill him and, worse yet, harm his favourite plane.

"They sure are throwing numbers at this problem," Tails grumbled with the sinking feeling that no matter how brilliant his defenses, an almost unlimited number of fools were firing at him from below. Why weren't they killing each other? Were they on lunch break? In a last desperate bid, Tails overcharged the afterburners which superheated the air in his wake. The missiles couldn't handle this (clumsy things) and exploded. The repulsor shield dealt with the shrapnel, but the shockwave compounded the strain to damage the Tornado's engines, forcing Tails to execute an ungraceful crashlanding in the middle of a Mercia road. The plane butted cars and trucks out of the way while skidding to a halt. Neither plane nor pilot had been destroyed because he had built the Tornado to be tougher than a freight train.

"Repairs!" Tails shouted, grabbing his toolkit and somersaulting onto one of the smoking, wheezing engine blocks.

He was interrupted, however, by a nest of guns swarming into the street.

"Humans," Tails groaned. They were, on average, between five and six feet tall while Tails barely cleared three feet (he had grown taller during the long war). As such, their human-sized weapons would not put neat little holes in him; they'd burst him to pieces. The non-humans would have at least listened to him before shooting. The humans would do it in the opposite order.

"He's one of ours!" a hidden voice yelled. "Attack!"

Non-human ears and horns poked out of nearby buildings to open fire on the human aggressors, who returned the gesture in kind. At last, both sides were ignoring him! He was caught in the crossfire, though, so he plunked back into the cockpit and covered his ears while automatic gunfire pinged harmlessly off the Tornado's super strong metal frame.

There was sudden, startling silence. Tails perked his ears up, then slowly the rest of his body followed.

The gunfight was still going on. The bullets were flying through the air, but so slowly that Tails could follow their trajectory without moving his head. The combatants were likewise slowed down. There was a new figure dressed in an immaculate white and black suit standing in the middle of the street, in the curious twilight between the chaos and madness of war. A single, glowing eye peered at Tails through his black and white mask. His elegant black gloves had just finished tracing a shining blue X in the air.

_"Fake,"_ the mysterious figure spoke the rune word.

"Harlequin!" Tails shouted, then slapped both paws over his mouth. He had met this enigmatic figure long ago, when he was but a wee cub and Robotnik had yet to make his move against King Acorn. The Harlequin had helped Tails survive a nasty plot against the tiny fox's life.

_"He is here,"_ the Harlequin said with a soft voice. His words filled the earth and sky, giving Tails the unsettling feeling of vertigo.

He remembered his cargo and brought it out. The metal box was terribly cold to the touch because its contents pulsed with an entropic aura. "This is just a soil sample, but it's deader than dead. It is unlife."

_"Go. Warn them," _he commanded. Though his words were just on the edge of hearing, Tails felt he could fall into them and never hit the bottom.

Shaking himself violently, Tails set about repairing the engines. Now and then he batted away a slow-motion bullet or grenade shrapnel. The Harlequin and his X-shaped rune kept watch, unmoving, unblinking. Eventually Tails got the engines started.

"Thanks. You saved my life again," he said with fervent praise.

_"If you want me, look to my tree on my hill," _Harlequin said by way of farewell. He waited until Tornado passed the outskirts of Mercia, then he undid the rune by drawing it in reverse. When the rune disappeared, so did he. On that road, the bullets, explosions and noise resumed their normal momentum, and it was not until half of each side was dead that they noticed the plane and pilot were missing.


	2. Analysis

New Mobotropolis was expanding. It was built on the ruins of Robotropolis, which had been built on the ruins of the first Mobotropolis. The war with Robotnik had been over for years after the mad scientist went into hiding. Then he was blown up by his own nuke, but that is another story. The Freedom Fighters of Knothole Village no longer lived there in the Great Forest, but had moved in to the city to help build it. Knothole Palace was the exception - the Great Forest offered unparalleled natural protection, and King Acorn still held court there with his wife. Their daughter Sally visited now and then to let them play with their granddaughter Paula. While neither parent approved of their daughter's choice of a husband, they could not deny that Sonic loved her and their child to utter distraction... when he was around.

"Auntie Sally!"

Tails ran the length of the royal court. He was covered in oil and stank of exhaust fumes.

The royal guard was not amused. "Hush, Tails! Ze royal family ees in ze middle of playtime."

King and Queen were playing peek-a-boo with Paula while Sally watched. The baby gurgled with delight.

"Stand down, Antoine," Sally commanded. The coyote took a knee while Tails barged past him with the metal box. A lot of shouting between Tails and Sally followed, prompting the King and Queen to shoo them away so that they could play with their grandchild in peace.

After an hour's worth of analysis in her laboratory, Sally was worried. They had introduced some bacteria to the entropic soil sample. Under a microscope, they saw that the bacteria instantly died... but then they began moving again. They were neither alive nor dead. It made Sally shudder. "The entire eastern coast is blighted?"

"Half the continent! It's spread past the radioactive zone and is rapidly encroaching on the Emerald Lake. The Mercians haven't noticed thanks to their stupid war."

"If it wasn't for your satellite, we would not have noticed until Mercia was destroyed. Tails, I know it's on the other side of Mobius, but we can't wait for the Mercians to call a truce and work together. They need our help."

"Let's start testing, then."

Sally made some weird motions with her fingers, then a small device unfolded itself from a dimensional pocket, plopping onto her paw. This way, the darn thing could _never _get lost, no matter where or when Sally went.

She cleared her throat. "NICOLE! Is there anything about this threat in your databanks from the future?"

"NEGATIVE," her personal computer replied in a pleasant feminine voice. "THE UNKNOWN ENTITY MUST HAVE THE ABILITY TO DISTORT SPACE-TIME."

"That's not encouraging."

"I APOLOGISE."

Midday passed and the sun went down before they gave up.

"Extreme heat, cold, vacuum, all kinds of radiation, biological and chemical agents, even Chaos Energy - nothing can neutralise the soil!" Sally despaired.

"The zombie bacteria isn't affected either, Auntie. They're still... moving."

Sally looked around at all the expensive machines and impressive array of apparatuses she owned. She even had a lesser Chaos Emerald somewhere in there and used it as a power source. "My usual approach has failed. It has to be dark magic."

Tails punched his palm. "The darkest kind. We don't know where that preacher man Emess wandered off to after our last adventure, so we'll have to settle for Mr. Lazer's weapon."


	3. Resolve

Lazer walked along the shoreline with Rebecca, who still carried their son in her belly. New Mobotropolis was a silver mirage in the distance. The red hedgehogs, with paws linked, drank in the salty air and the green-blue scent of the ocean, intent on fixing the memory in their minds of their happiest moment.

"Ashlar will join us soon," Rebecca told her husband. She knew that, around him, she didn't have to use her voice. She spoke because she wanted their baby to hear.

"He will be strong," Lazer said, also with words and for the same reason. While he could communicate directly with his son even at this prenatal stage, he did not want to leave Rebecca out.

"Will he be _too_ different?" Rebecca asked.

Lazer shook his head. "No more different than Paula. I was, what - ten years old when my Dad's Chaos Siphon infused me? Even so, Sonic has been absorbing Chaos Energy at a much faster rate throughout his life."

"I thought having those five things in you would make you more..."

Lazer smirked. "More what?"

She blushed. "Special!"

He laughed. "Are you and Sally competing over which super-baby will lift a car first? I just have five lesser, red Chaos Emeralds. They're insignificant compared to Sonic collecting billions of Power Rings, frequently tapping lesser, Super and even the Master Emerald..."

"Okay, you've made your point. But," she said, pulling him closer with mischief in her lovely brown eyes, "you're wrong about the competition between me and Sally."

He pressed noses with her. "Oh?"

She smooched him. "We were actually competing over which one of our babies would fly first!"

Lazer doubled over laughing at that image. He hadn't laughed much since their homeland was destroyed. It felt strange and it hurt his sides, but in a good way. The land of Xadra and the city of Adrax - where they'd grown up on the other side of the world - may have been gone, but life went on here.

Here, there was still an ocean, still a blue sky and still a golden sun piercing the fluffy white vault of heaven. Unfortunately, a courier would soon arrive who would inform them that those pretty things might be gone, soon. Tails buzzed the beach with Tornado before coming in for a landing. The red hedgehog couple approached him while he fell over himself running across the sand, dropping the metal box he carried and spilling its deadly contents over the seashells. The moment it touched the living sand it spread over the beach like ink spilled over a canvas, and a wintry chill gushed through the air. Tails wound up his twin tails and took to the sky.

Lazer froze, a paralytic horror overwhelming his supernatural senses. One thought screamed through his mind: _That should not exist in a living universe!_

Then he remembered his family, and love drove out fear.

"R'THRYS!" he shouted - nay, _commanded _- one paw reaching for the sun. With his other paw he grabbed Rebecca and flew straight up into the air along with Tails. Below, the blackened beach was rising with sandy tendrils to meet them!

Above them there was a nova burst of red light that resolved into a column of sizzling energy centred on the rising wave of black sand. When Rebecca and Tails opened their eyes they saw the greatsword in Lazer's paw. Below, over a hundred cubic metres of sand was gone, leaving a perfect spherical glass crater. The sea rushed in to fill it. A few days later a popular beach resort would find and convert it into a saltwater swimming pool.

"I'm sorry," said Tails. "That's what's happening just east of Mercia. It will hit the Emerald Lake by tomorrow."

"Why didn't I sense it?" Lazer asked as the three of them landed.

Tails told him what he, Sally and NICOLE had learned. "Moreover, it does not want to be found. Just before it blew up, my satellite recorded a single frame of some dark thing rushing through the atmosphere."

Lazer snapped his fingers and looked at Rebecca. "THAT'S why the TV is on the fritz!"

"I thought it was the rain yesterday," she said with a shrug. Then, to Tails, "Did the company contract you to build another?"

"Yeah," Tails grinned, scratching the back of his head. "They know it isn't my fault. Their phones are ringing off the hook with angry customers."

Lazer breathed, hugging Rebecca close. He felt her heartbeat: she wasn't afraid; just surprised. He smiled. "Tails, let's round up Sonic and warn Knuckles. I cannot fight this thing alone, even with R'Thrys."

"Why?" Tails asked with upturned paws.

"It frightened me," Lazer replied without a shred of sarcasm.


	4. Teamwork

Speed. He was speed - literally. Sonic was more than a blue hedgehog; he was speed incarnate, a child of the rushing wind. The leaves and grass parted for his feet as they sped around and over the sacred marble columns and arches of Marble Garden. He had been here long ago, during the third war against Robotnik. After losing that war, the mad scientist disappeared for years - and it wasn't until nuclear flames wiped Xadra off the map that the Freedom Fighters knew where he'd been. He had lost that war, too, and returned to Robotropolis, but Lazer had followed...

...The rest was history. Mobius was rid of that fat madman once and for all, and would enjoy peace for as long as it could.

Sonic moved so fast that the wind pressed against him, but there was no element on Mobius that could stop him. Clouds, mountains, oceans, lava - he had conquered them all. They were his friends; they couldn't hurt him any more than the leaves could hurt the wind. He kept pushing against that invisible hand until it gave way, leaving the sound of thunder in his wake. He went up, down, around, over, under and through the ancient ruins. What civilisation had lived here? What had they learned? Where were they now? These questions didn't bother Sonic. Running made him feel good. That was all that mattered in this moment...

...until the voice of Tails touched his mind.

_"Sonic!"_

"GAH!" the blue wonder cried out, instinctively curling into a spiky ball and rolling to a halt. "Don't DO that, little buddy! Wait, HOW are you doing this? Get out of my head!"

_"Sorry, I'm using Mr. Lazer."_

Sonic took a breath and shot off again, looping through several stone arches. "Red taught you?"

_"Not really. Chaos Emeralds are connected to all life, no matter how far away... Sonic, you gotta come home. We're planning an attack on..."_

"That evil desert east of Mercia?"

_"How did you...?"_

"My morning jog around the world. It's how I read the daily newspaper."

_"Well, we've already informed Knuckles, so he's ready to hide the Master Emerald if we fail."_

"We won't lose," he said, then tapped Tails on the shoulder. The fox leaped into the air, crying out in surprise, breaking the fist-bump with Lazer. Rebecca laughed.

"Ugh... Sonic!" Tails yelled, his face uncertain whether he was surprised, awed or angry.

"Still showing off," Lazer said. He hadn't even seen Sonic arrive, but he had felt the wind. It followed the blue bolt wherever he went.

Sonic shrugged, the easy shrug of someone fully aware of his strength. "What d'you need us for, Red? That oversized sword can kill anything, even if it's already dead!"

"Yes, but _I_ can't. Our enemy is immune to Chaos Energy, so that makes my five Emeralds only useful for Chaos Control. I'll need your speed and Tails' brains."

Tails blinked. "My what now?"

Lazer turned to the teenage fox with a grin. "You just tossed your thoughts across the planet and brought Sonic's thoughts back again. I can't do that, and our enemy may be anywhere at any time."

Tails nodded. "NICOLE said it has that ability."

"Let's go, then. Red?"

Lazer held up a finger. "Dropping Rebecca home first."

Just before the couple vanished in a flash of red light, Rebecca threw her arms around Lazer's neck and looked up into his eyes. Lazer reappeared moments later. Somehow he was blushing a deeper shade of red through his orange skin. He looked at Sonic, who winked because he understood perfectly. Tails looked between the two of them, not understanding in the least. Married people are weird.

"Nuh-uh, nope," Lazer said, avoiding the fist Tails held out. "I want to look as menacing as possible to our enemy, like in those Super Sentai shows I watched as a kid."

"So how are we gonna do this?" Sonic asked.

"Well..."


	5. Deomorg

The three warriors teleported onto the battlefield in the most threatening stance they could come up with: Tails with the fingertips of both paws braced against his forehead, Lazer holding R'Thrys straight up in the air with one paw, and Sonic in a runner's stance.

...

"This was more impressive in my mind," Lazer admitted, lowering his weapon.

"I look like I have a headache," Tails complained, adjusting his flight goggles.

Sonic smirked, pressing a thumb against the side of his nose. "I don't need to _look_ ready to _be _ready."

The three of them shook it off and relaxed. Before them swirled a vast inky desert that slithered with what looked like tentacles and gaping maws full of teeth. They were in the middle of the desert but it was so cold, icicles began forming on their fur or spines.

"That's just _wrong_," Sonic summarised, stomping to keep his blood moving.

"Not supposed to have nightmares in broad daylight," Tails added, his teeth chattering.

Whatever the land had looked like before, it was gone, now. In place of living grass, trees and wildlife, horrors crawled everywhere, neither dead nor alive, moved by an unseen will. They had noticed the three little creatures who had intruded on their dark domain. The entire landscape began converging on them. Imagine the horizon - the entire horizon, as far as you could see from left to right - lifting up, and blotting out the sun as it moved up, over, then began falling towards you.

Lazer let go of R'Thrys, which floated in place. He held out both fists. "Gentlemen, your Emeralds, please."

Tails and Sonic gave him a fist-bump. Each had a lesser Chaos Emerald woven into his glove, and combined with Lazer's, they had all seven required to super-transform!

They flew skyward. Super Sonic and Super Tails were golden all over, while Hyper Lazer - who was technically _already_ super - got some additional hardware: a shiny suit of crimson armour. He plucked the greatsword out of the air, and now truly looked the part of a knight.

"The sacred flame devours all!" Hyper Lazer cried out, aiming the greatsword at the land of darkness. "FLASH FIRE!"

To understand what happened next you must know that the 'flames' of R'Thrys aren't physical, as the sword itself isn't physical by any means. The fire that burns in the heart of that sword transcends the small confines of our third and fourth dimensions; that is, space and time. When Hyper Lazer commanded it to burn his enemy, it burned the _entire _mass in an_ instant_. Countless millions of tonnes of sand, rocks, soil, undead creatures... the fire did not spread; it was there and everywhere... then everything was gone. An observer would have seen naught but a blinding red explosion of light and heard a great, roaring sound to be followed by shocking silence and emptiness.

The entire landscape had been glassed in the blink of an eye. It stretched to the horizon and more, in every direction they looked, reflecting the sun like a mirror. A few months later, some entrepreneurs from Mercia, tired of warring, would name it the Glass Desert and open it as a tourist attraction.

However, the freezing cold would not abate. Something down there moved.

"That's the real threat!" Super Tails announced, his breath a plume of white.

"It's... humanoid," Hyper Lazer said.

While the trio moved closer, the sky began to fall. It was also on fire and moving around seventy-two kilometres per second - well over Mach 200. After a half-second passed, Hyper Lazer and Super Tails would never have known what killed them.

Before that happened, Super Sonic was already balled up and inside the meteor shower, bouncing from one to the other so rapidly that he was invisible. He reappeared beside his friends, and it was only then that hundreds of small explosions reached their ears. Small harmless rocks fell to the ground all around them, radiating the same malevolent magical aura as the creature below.

"Thanks!" they said, giving Super Sonic a thumbs-up. He winked.

The real threat drifted upward to meet them. It was a humanoid-shaped hole in reality, distorting the air and light around it. They could see two rows of glittering white teeth like diamonds strewn over black silk. It had no eyes, or a body, for that matter.

**"You!" **it spoke, its teeth gritting with the words. Its voice felt like a deathly cold fountain washing over their brains.

Hyper Lazer blinked. "M-me? I've never met you before!"

**"R'Thrys!" **their enemy roared, its teeth snapping.

Stunned, the trio looked askance at the greatsword. Only its wielder could understand it, so he translated aloud: "This creature is the akalich known as Deomorg. He is a lich who consumed so many worlds and cosmic entities that he ascended to become a deity of death."

"Is he connected to Thanatos?" Super Tails asked. Mobius had almost been destroyed by that dark god recently.

Hyper Lazer shook his head. He translated, "Deomorg began life as a human, tens of thousands of years ago in another galaxy..."

**"I ate your previous wielders, R'Thrys! I will eat this one as well!" **Deomorg screamed, then blasted green light from his shadowy fingertips. Unlike his previous attack, these approached near-light speed, so Super Sonic made the save once more using Chaos Control to warp his friends. Where the green light struck the ground it gouged fissures stretching for miles! They resembled two giant skeletal hands clutching Mobius in their grip.

"He really knows how to hold a grudge!" Super Sonic said. "How do we fight him?"

"He's too fast for me to strike with the blade, so the only effective weapon available is the sacred flame," Hyper Lazer translated. "We don't have any other deities of similar or greater power in our pockets."

That being said, he aimed the greatsword at Deomorg. The akalich hissed and sputtered as the divine fire overwhelmed him, not even leaving ashes behind. There was a brief lull, then Super Tails' eyes bugged out. "Below us!"

Hyper Lazer did not dodge in time. A clay spire slammed upward into him, punching both him and his weapon somewhere into the clouds. The rocky blade extended all the way from the ground below, where Deomorg could be seen with one hand sunk into the earth.

"That fire leaves nothing to regenerate from. What gives?" Super Sonic asked while they dodged another spire.

"A lich can't be destroyed unless its phylactery is destroyed!" Super Tails said.

"Use smaller words, little buddy."

"He has a box where he keeps his soul!"

"Ohhh. Where is it?"

Hyper Lazer reappeared in a flash of red light. He looked grumpy and covered in dirt. "It's not in this galaxy," he translated, then turned to the golden fox. "Tails, I wonder how powerful your mind really is?"

With the might of seven Emeralds amplifying his natural gifts, Super Tails did the headache pose again and peered into Deomorg's mind. The akalich halted his attack to screech with indignation, gnashing its glittering teeth. It seemed to be disoriented, gripping what would have been its skull, but not even a fragment of bone dust remained in that undead relic of eons past.

"Not just one! They're HUGE! Six... _seven...!_ They're in another ARRRGH!"

Super Tails was cut off by an extraordinary amount of pain in his brain. Below, the akalich was performing a psionic shriek that stunned all three of them and caused blood to leak from Super Tails' eyes and ears, despite his nigh invulnerable body. The hedgehogs recovered quickly, but the fox was out cold. Super Sonic caught him mid-fall. The golden glow faded from his orange fur, his twin tails hung limp.

"That's bad. We gotta get him to safety, Red."

"No. Deomorg is after me; I'm the bait. Get out of here while I figure this out!"

"Okay, but don't look inside his head!"

Super Sonic warped through space-time with Tails. Hyper Lazer gripped R'Thrys with both hands and faced Deomorg, resolve burning around him in flames of Chaos and the divine.

"War is escalation. You upgrade from rocks to nuclear warheads, but this is the END of escalation, Deomorg! There is NOTHING beyond this!" he thundered.

Deomorg laughed, sounding like a graveyard of rattling bones. **"You are bluffing. R'Thrys watched me swallow its wielders, their worlds and even their GODS one by one because none of them - NOT ONE - learned its full potential. Prepare to be eaten, little rodent!"**

As Deomorg opened his hollow jaws wide, he heard his meal utter a few words.

"The sacred blade severs dimensions!"

**"YOU WEREN'T BLUFFING?!"**

"DIMENSION CROSS!"

He swung R'Thrys. Deomorg was in the process of teleporting away, but where the blade passed it cut cleanly through the third and fourth dimensions of space and time. This left a rift in the universe. Normally when this happens, the universe leaks space and time into other dimensions like a tyre with a slow leak. This would eventually cause the universe to collapse in on itself, deflating in a manner that would almost certainly kill all life within. However, Hyper Lazer and Deomorg, two beings of immense power, were right beside the space-time rift, and were sucked into it faster than light. This sealed up the rift and satisfied whatever esoteric physical laws demanded it.

This also confused Sonic who, depowered to his normal blue colour, appeared a second later. Holding an extra glove in his paw, he had returned only to find them missing.


	6. Memories

Lazer and Deomorg tumbled through dimensions, not knowing where or _when _they were going. As he was no longer in the same universe as his companions, Lazer was depowered to his normal appearance. He had also lost hold of R'Thrys, which even now was several hundred thousand dimensional layers away from him.

The combatants were trapped. Colours, sounds, textures, smells and even tastes assaulted them from every angle real or imagined. It was enough to drive them insane, but the combatants were so utterly focused on destroying each other that their minds maintained a tenuous psychic link despite crisscrossing the different layers of reality. It is the essence of _thought_ - the activity of a mind - which is the one constant across the dimensional planes.

They almost lost contact with each other when Lazer passed through the second dimension while Deomorg hurtled through the fifth. Lazer flattened into a series of closed lines, becoming a picture on paper, unable to see anything but a flat line in front of him. Meanwhile Deomorg was literally turning inside-out, his accursed body becoming a hyper-spatial object built from fourth-dimensional objects.

This series of events was unpleasant and disorienting for both combatants, but even more so for the residents of the dimensions they visited.

After observing Deomorg appear in their dimension for a few non-linear seconds, the fifth-dimensional creatures within that fractal area believed it to be a horrid omen. They found religion and began preaching to their friends and family, who politely ignored them.

The two-dimensional square-person who observed Lazer for a few tedious seconds saw a fantastic shape of many sides and many angles. As he was quite unaccustomed to this - it would be like a human seeing another human with multiple heads, arms and legs - he went quite mad and spent several months as the guest of an asylum. He got through treatment with the support of his family and is recovering well.

Returning to our story, now. After an unmeasured time across an unmeasured distance, their minds finally locked together and the memories of the warrior and the sorcerer flowed into each other's mind.

Deomorg viewed Lazer's memories through the hedgehog's eyes. Together they viewed the nuclear annihilation of Adrax City and subsequent fallout. Then they let out a hoarse and horrible scream: it was the cry of ultimate suffering, the same sound his own heart had made once, long ago. Speaking of which, a scene from deep in the abyss of time played out in Lazer's mind...

Lazer looked through Deomorg's eyes, experiencing everything just as the lich had. He expected death and destruction, but instead got a rather nice family outing. Deomorg had been human once, just as R'Thrys said. The human sorcerer blinked, then turned his head to the night sky where the stars all seemed to be pouring into a funnel that swept upward and away from the planet. This galaxy had a different shape from the Milky Way's. He considered his wife and children standing around him. The four of them were smiling, their teenage daughter naming the constellations to their elder son, who was ten years old. His wife carried their younger son on her back. He was fast asleep, arms and legs dangling like a monkey with his face pressed against her neck. The remains of a picnic lay spread around them.

"Let's head home, Deo," his wife said in a low voice so as not to disturb her passenger.

"I will follow," he said in a pleasant, rumbling voice, so unlike the ghastly wail Lazer knew. He gestured with one finger, then the picnic cloth folded itself and the leftovers into the basket. He picked up the basket, patted his elder son on the head and shooed him on ahead with his mother. Had this man truly been normal once?

When his four loved ones turned toward home with him following, Deo paused.

He was tempted.

He was so very tempted to live a mortal life.

Tensions between this human kingdom and the neighbouring dragon kingdom had been seething for years. War was inevitable. He would advise his king, lead the magician's guild into war against the dragons, then help rebuild during peacetime. His king would honour him by giving him the title of Master Wizard. Deo and his wife would then see their children grow up. Under his guidance, Deo's children would forge a treaty with the dragons, leading to a golden age for both kingdoms where human and dragon coexisted. Deo would know peace, joy and love immeasurable in his old age.

The temptation to be good was not strong enough.

Like many people, Deo had wondered what lay beyond the sky. When lenses weren't enough, he tried scrying - it was a kind of clairvoyance or remote vision that allowed wizards to see things from very far away. Over the years, Deo had become the best scrier on his planet. He had spent the last few years searching the stars, and what he had found up there had driven him to desperation. Oh yes, Deo used to wonder what lay beyond the sky. Now he knew.

He drew a long hunting knife from his robes. When he held it up to the moonlight, it shone with silver runes. Lazer knew - he _felt _what was going to happen next, and he willed with all of his might not for it to happen... but it was useless. Within seconds the foul deed was done. All four of them died not knowing who or what had attacked them - Deo had been efficient and silent. The silver runes now shone red, and the lifeblood soaking into the grass and soil swirled upward around Deo. The red stream converged on his face. He screamed as the light was extinguished from his eyes forever. He screamed, and it was the soul-wrenching wail of the dead who yet lived... _Deomorg._

But why? For what?

Power, Lazer understood. Deo had done this all to gain power enough to destroy the threat he had seen among the stars: It was a terrible creature which defied every physical and magical law. It had many mouths and many eyes, but one great mind that Deo had inadvertently touched. Deo had gleaned but one thought from this abomination: _hunger. _A hunger so vast it would swallow worlds, and it would have passed through his solar system within two hundred years. One mortal lifetime would not have been enough to fight this monster. Sacrificing two kingdoms with a few hundred thousand lives was better than losing an entire planet with billions of lives. It was a cold equation, and Deomorg was the calculator.

Already armed with human knowledge, he easily devoured the human kingdom where he lived. Then, armed with a legion of human souls, he invaded the neighbouring dragon kingdom, absorbing their people and their arcane lore. Overflowing with dark magical might, his unliving human and dragon armies would be enough to combat the terrible threat from the stars, so Deomorg shored up his defenses and waited. Knowing that the rest of the planet had several very inquisitive species - humans and dragons among them - Deomorg kept them all at bay by shrouding both kingdoms in an impenetrable fog that neither mortal nor magical eye could pierce.

However, there was one thing the lich had not counted on: divine intervention.

Angered by his genocidal acts, the gods of his world appeared to him. This was somewhat alarming to Deomorg who, until then, thought that the gods existed in religion, not reality. They demonstrated firstly that yes, they _were _real, and secondly that the horror among the stars was known to them. They would have dealt with it in their own time. Deo the _human_ sorcerer and _his family_ were supposed to have been their instruments to unite the human and dragon kingdoms! Then the gods would have chosen their champions from both to destroy the terror from the stars. Triumphing over this interstellar evil would have stood as an example to the rest of the planet, creating a worldwide peace lasting a thousand years.

But Deomorg had railroaded their campaign beyond repair.

At this revelation, Deomorg knew anguish unlike any other. He reared back his head and let out a shriek that melted mountains and tore the sky open. It was the cry of ultimate suffering, a sound Lazer recognised because he had made it, too.

Deomorg had struggled in vain. He had slain his family and his king for nothing. His anguish was so terrible that it shattered what remained of his mind. Anguish turned to hatred. He made war with the gods. They resisted, sending a champion against him who wielded R'Thrys, but it was not enough. That champion had not learned the secret of the divine flame. So Deomorg slew their champion, but for all his hideous power he could not destroy the sacred sword. It flew off to search for another wielder. Deomorg then attacked the pantheon, stealing their quintessence and their divine portfolios, which dictated the parts of reality each governed.

When the gods died, their planet died, and all the life therein. Deomorg stood triumphant upon the dead planet, screeching his victory to the indifferent stars while his undead armies looked at him with hollow eyes. He was now a god, but there was one portfolio that the lich would never possess: the mandate of Life and the living. So he sought to end it all, everywhere, in his demonic jealousy. Deomorg started his campaign by eating the eldritch terror among the stars (it was more surprised than anything at _that_ turn of events), then moved on to other solar systems, following R'Thrys wherever it found a new wielder.

Then the memory faded, and Lazer felt the dense grip of reality rushing like an ocean wave over him.


	7. Annihilation

Lazer and Deomorg finally landed on solid ground. In that instant of consciousness, Lazer recognised the life-force of Mobius. However, they were not on the same battlefield where he'd left Sonic and Tails. Before he could think anything else, the red hedgehog bounced a few times then instinctively balled up and rolled to a halt. When he unfurled from a spiky ball, he saw his enemy anew.

Lazer had never felt so disgusted in all his life, and he'd survived _three_ wars.

"You're worse than Robotnik and Thanatos put together. One was a man who wanted to take over the world, while the other was a god who sought to usurp Destiny and Fate. At least they had a plan! You're just insane!"

**"You have lost R'Thrys. Die and disappear!"**

Deomorg fired his death rays again, carving up the landscape like angry claws, but Lazer had already teleported a fair distance behind the akalich. When Deomorg turned around, his enemy was holding one paw out over the rocky ground, which melted, bubbled and rose up, releasing R'Thrys from its burning depths!

**"NO!"**

Ten more death rays shot toward Lazer but he deflected them with a single sweep of the greatsword, returning them to sender. The lich was, of course, immune to his own magic, which fizzled out into ineffectual sparks against his accursed body.

"I just learned another secret of this sword: it is familiar with divine law," Lazer said, then drew himself up to his full height (three and a half feet; he was tall for a hedgehog) with R'Thrys held in both paws. When he spoke again, he echoed the words he'd just heard: "Deomorg, the Throne has numbered the days of your reign and brought them to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Your kingdom of death will never rise again."

A moment of recognition seemed to flit across that eyeless face, but then it was gone and its teeth clacked together.

**"I reject your Throne and laws. They too will be devoured and, when I am victorious at the end of all things, I shall finally devour myself, bringing an end to this miserable existence."**

Sonic and Tails chose this moment to appear beside Lazer, one after the other, in flashes of blue and orange light.

"Red!" Sonic said, looking him over with disbelieving eyes.

Lazer did a double-take when he saw the orange fox. "Tails! Aren't you injured?"

Tails shook his head. He was perfectly healthy, according to Lazer's senses, but the teenage fox had a thousand-yard stare only war veterans should have.

Sonic opened his mouth but Tails interrupted: "You were missing for seventeen days," he said, his voice hollow and mechanical.

Lazer reeled at this. Even Deomorg was taken aback and halted his attack.

Space and time are, by themselves, immense; anyone who lives in the third dimension will attest to this. These warriors, however, had not merely passed through the third dimension like a rock skipping across a river, but had tumbled through multiple dimensions. Their journey had been like a rock skipping across a river that was simultaneously dry in Summer heat, frozen in Winter chill and flooded in Spring rains. They were both lucky they hadn't been gone seventeen _millennia_ - by then, everyone Lazer knew would have been long dead, and Deomorg would have been faced with a planet that had thousands of years to prepare countermeasures to his dark magic.

Nothing less than a miracle had brought them back so soon from their interdimensional jaunt.

The red hedgehog groaned, smacking a paw against his forehead. "Rebecca?"

"Hasn't had the baby yet!" Sonic clapped him on the shoulder. "Cheer up."

Lazer breathed easier.

Tails continued. "I had time to sort out _his_ thoughts," Tails said, pointing to the mad god.

Meanwhile, Deomorg was still deciding whether seventeen days had really passed or this was all an elaborate trick. You never could tell with these hero types. The last time he had trusted a hero's word, it had cost him two planets and set his campaign back a thousand years.

Tails looked at Lazer... no, he was looking _through _him. The boy's blank, unfocused gaze had no place on a face that young. "Sonic taught..."

"I taught the little guy Chaos Control!"

"I learned it inside a day. Why didn't you either of you teach me before?"

"Marriage," both hedgehogs replied.

"And I had a kid," Sonic added.

Tails shook his head. "I know what and where his phylacteries are."

Without warning, Tails reached up and pressed his paw against Lazer's face. The red hedgehog's eyes snapped wide open as the forbidden knowledge filtered into his mind. "I'll need to power up!"

They each gave him a fist-bump once more, transforming. Hyper Lazer used R'Thrys to surround them with divine fire as they rose into the sky. With their thoughts as one, the trio used Chaos Control to open multiple portals to multiple locations within another galaxy. Deomorg boasted not one, not three, but a grisly _seven _dead planets as his phylacteries. They were back in his home galaxy, tens of millions of lightyears away.

Through the portals and their super-enhanced senses, they saw and felt that the planets were miserable black and gray things where every life-form was undead. His armies were nigh infinite, blanketing the glaciated continents and frozen oceans of each world.

The super trio shivered with horror and disgust as they felt this evil through the portals. The armies of seven dead worlds had stood unmoving in the cold and dark all this time. Staring at nothing while the fruitless wind howled. Waiting for his command forever... unable to die.

His phylacteries were the mountains, oceans, skies, and all. They were all filled with his unlife; every rock, snowflake and even the frigid planetary cores. Every inch of those seven planets would not allow Deomorg to die. He had absorbed trillions of mortals and thousands of deities, making his own soul so enormous, warped and torn that it could exist simultaneously across space and time within these colossal accursed vessels. These planets wandered through space, alone, yet his soul was able to contain them all _within_ him!

All seven would have to be destroyed at once. Not even chain-reaction supernovae could accomplish this, because the akalich had been careful to steer his death-planets away from any heat and light.

There was only one way.

**"NO!" **the akalich screamed, throwing everything within his magical arsenal at his enemies. No matter what he did, though, the divine fire would not yield. The super trio was too fast, too smart and too focused.

They spoke with one voice: "The sacred flame devours all: FLASH FIRE!"

Drawing on the super trio's shared willpower, R'Thrys shot seven red beams of light through the seven portals.

As they caught fire then burned down to nothing in a heartbeat, the undead armies stationed on each planet all felt one emotion in their immortal souls: _relief!_

As they were melted, converted to plasma and then evaporated into nothingness in the space between breaths, the undead planets that had languished in cold and darkness for unnumbered eons gave seven cries of joy as they at last - at last! - joined their gods in death.

Beyond the seven portals, the dead planets vanished without leaving so much as a clump of ashes behind, their individual atoms cleansed of hideous unlife and scattered to the corners of their galaxy by the sacred fire. It was perfect annihilation, at the speed of thought!


	8. Oblivion

Deomorg sagged. His feet touched the ground, freezing it. He was alone, now. He had nothing left in all the cosmos to revive him. His seven thrones were sundered, his seven crowns broken, leaving all of his state in him alone.

The super trio let go, all of them powering down to normal. Lazer spoke in his own voice. "I warned you, Deomorg. There is nothing beyond this!"

He lifted R'Thrys to cast the sacred flame, to destroy the only piece of soul the akalich had left, but then Deomorg gnashed his teeth.

All of his teeth ground together, then shattered with a beautiful crystalline note that had a powerful effect on time and space.

The trio backed off as reality rippled around the humanoid black hole. He had no eyes and no teeth, now. No face. Just a voice.

**"You are not the only one who wields a divine weapon."**

The shattered pieces of his teeth coalesced into shining white shapes. Shapes that were holding weapons.

Lazer's eyes went wide. "Tails?"

Tails grunted. "His teeth weren't teeth. They were prisons," he said, causing Sonic to go "Huh?" So, the fox explained: "He collected gods and kept them in gems."

Some of the shining warriors became humanoid. Some went on all four legs. Some slithered on their bellies. Some flapped wings. Each carried a fearsome weapon suited to their stature. Lazer did not feel any evil coming from these new arrivals. They radiated warmth, goodness and a love of life much like the one he had discovered with Rebecca. The meaning of this struck him when he looked down at the greatsword in his paw.

R'Thrys was a _sacred_ sword. It could neither burn nor cut that which was pure!

Deomorg stood behind his holy army, laughing the way only a puppet master can. **"R'Thrys, my old nemesis. Will you cut down the very creatures who held you?"**

"He has me in check," Lazer told his friends, and they understood.

"Time to show off, little buddy," Sonic prompted, sizing up his nearest opponents.

"CHAOS CONTROL!" Tails shouted, holding up his paw with the emerald-woven glove.

All three of them powered up without touching each other! Hyper Lazer was shocked. Given time, the teenage fox would work miracles... but before he finished that thought, Super Tails did just that.

In a huge burst of gold light, Super Tails summoned a personal mecha that was twenty feet tall. It was painted red and yellow just like the Tornado. He had teleported the entire thing _around _him, and when his paws touched the controls the _mecha itself powered up. _It was now sixty feet tall and shone golden like its pilot. It was no illusion; the super mecha was heavier, sinking slightly into the earth.

"Using Chaos Control for transfiguration, teleportation and energy-to-mass conversion. Did he learn how to move the moon and stars yet?"

Super Sonic grinned. "Give him time."

Three of the shining warriors slithered, loped or flew forward. While they moved, their bodies and weapons grew until they were comparable to the super robot. These four titans blotted out the sun while casting light of their own, three white and one gold. While Super Tails and his super mecha dealt with those kaiju, Super Sonic bum-rushed the remaining group. All but six were knocked flat, and these swift ones gave chase to the golden blur.

That just left nine for Hyper Lazer to deal with. He gave them no ground. Calling upon his training in the _Wanrikken_ style, he drew upon both his inner spiritual and Chaos energy to make division of himself and even his greatsword. The nine red knights charged the group Super Sonic had knocked down. He and his copies went for the ranged combatants first, slashing their glowing white short bow, chakram, boomerang and javelin into tinder. The blade of R'Thrys would not cut the shining warriors themselves, though.

Deomorg grunted. **"As expected."**

Then Hyper Lazer and his copies reversed their blades and smote the ranged combatants into the ground with four simultaneous mighty blows, leaving sizeable craters. R'Thrys was single-edged, capable of both cutting _and_ crushing.

Deomorg snarled. Four of his shining warriors weren't moving anymore. Five remained. They had resisted Hyper Lazer's _Wanrikken _copies with their defenses, then destroyed them with their melee weapons. The red knight retreated, his surviving copies disappearing. His illusions, no matter how real, wouldn't work anymore. He had to fight with _real _form.

Hyper Lazer charged Chaos energy within his body, separate from the holy fire of his weapon. This caused his suit of Chaos Armour to light up like the angry red sunrise over Sandopolis Zone. The Paladin charged with its shield, holding a short sword at the ready. The red knight leaned to the right and kicked off the ground with terrific force, with greatsword held out to the left. He passed to the left of the shield, which turned to deflect his blow but was cleaved in two. The blade bounced off the Paladin's arm while the red knight, still in flight, kicked his shining metal boots into the Brawler's face.

The greatsword's sharp edge rebounded off the Paladin's arm, like two magnetic North poles repelling each other. This caused the greatsword's blunt edge to smash into the Spearman's long spear as its sharp tongue flicked out to stab Hyper Lazer. The spear was undamaged but the blow staggered its wielder while the red knight landed on the Brawler's face, surfing the body some distance. Hyper Lazer somersaulted over the Barbarian's club and the Berserker's axe. He uncurled to smite the ground once more with the blunt edge, this time driving a huge burst of Chaos energy into the soil. With a volcanic roar, a lava plume hurled the five shining warriors into the air. They may have been immune to holy fire and Chaos energy, but they weren't immune to the savage laws of physics!

Through the middle of this volcanic eruption flew the red knight, the lava sloughing off his armour like fiery orange petals, his voice echoing the subterranean roar of the earth: _"WANRIKKEN!"_

Then there were ten red knights with ten greatswords arcing through the air. Five blunt edges descended and five ascended, crushing the five shining warriors in the middle with a sickening CRACK! Their broken bodies fell in a ring around Hyper Lazer, who twirled R'Thrys then rested it on a pauldron with a metallic _ching!_

The gold super robot struck a victory pose over the remains of three shining kaiju, their limbs twisted by its relentless artillery and melee assault. Super Tails was laughing in the cockpit. "Chessboard's clear. Only the king remains."

Super Sonic unfurled from a spiky ball, then folded his arms atop a shapeless pile of six shining speedsters. They had been pulverised into jelly. They may have been fast, but their bodies had not withstood several thousand of his signature spin-dashes per second. He grinned. "Ready."

The trio turned towards Deomorg. The lich made an arcane gesture with both hands: the eighteen shining bodies dissolved, then from their remains erupted hundreds of black chains!

"Gah!"

"Urk!"

"Tch!"

Super Sonic and Super Tails, including the towering super robot, were bound around their arms, legs and necks. Not even Super Sonic had been fast enough to escape this trap. They both tried using Chaos Control to warp away, but their powers weren't working!

Then they both noticed that the black chains had not bound Hyper Lazer's limbs: the chains _went through his body._

"RED!"

"MR. LAZER!"

The Chaos armour was shredded through and through, much like his body inside, but somehow the red hedgehog was still alive. Black chains transfixed him like a butterfly in a display case. Super Tails wondered why he saw no blood, then he realised that it was pooling inside the armour. Of his predicament, Hyper Lazer said, "Hurk."

This was Deomorg's cue. **"Nightmare Chains," **he said, **"each link imprisons a soul. R'Thrys has cut them before, but it cannot cut the chains inside your body. Are you ready to begin your trip to the other side?"**

"No..."

Deomorg laughed at Hyper Lazer. The sound evoked a winter gale. **"Do not beg for mercy."**

"I'm... not... begging!"

R'Thrys flared to brilliant, burning life even as Hyper Lazer's own life flickered away. The chains were not cut... they were _melting!_ They were even melting _inside his body!_

Super Sonic's green eyes grew three sizes. "Red, what are you DOING?"

Super Tails blinked, head tilted. Then his jaw dropped! "Sonic, remember his Emeralds? He can't be hurt by fire!"

Hyper Lazer dropped into a three-point stance, the burning liquid soul-steel oozing from the holes in his body and his armour. He then stood upright, with rivers of molten metal flowing out of him and dripping from his greatsword. He was a living volcano. His obsidian eyes blazed with the flames of Chaos.

"I'm fireproof."

The freed souls took flight as wisps, soaring upward to their reward. Hyper Lazer walked forward to Deomorg with an executioner's tread. R'Thrys shone with pure white light from its blade, while shadows came to life around its blunt edge. "I acknowledged you as a divine threat and responded with appropriate force," the red knight told the lich, "but still you do not retreat."

Deomorg's mighty shoulders drooped. Where would he fly? What star, what galaxy would hide him? **"No retreat is possible, now." **The lich almost sounded resigned.

"Then your trial begins."

The lich growled. **"What law would I obey? None could stop me."**

"The law has no limit. Likewise, mercy has no limit," Hyper Lazer said. He lowered the greatsword and extended an open paw instead. The next word he said was not his. It was not his desire, or his idea of justice. It was unlike anything the red knight believed in, and it was the first time Deomorg heard the word: _"Repent."_

"What?" Super Tails said, his super robot straining against the black chains to no avail. Similarly bound, Super Sonic said nothing, but his fists clenched.

A shiver of hope thrilled the lich's being, shaking him to the core. He saw the open paw, the divine weapon held in check, its fiery justice dimmed. For an infinitesimal moment he was Deo again, and he stood on the gulf separating heaven and hell. His family was waiting for him amidst the glory and splendour of the Eternal Light, but below in the Eternal Dark there were oceans of the damned clamouring for his destruction. Deo teetered between the two infinities, but in the end his self-loathing claimed a bitter victory. Reality cut deep. **"Repent, to what end? There is no-one left to forgive me. I made sure of that." **

A sadness that was not his, crossed Hyper Lazer's face. He felt a sorrow that did not belong to him, a loss that he had never laid claim to. Was it not a good thing that the lich was damned - had damned himself? Why this pathos?

The red knight did not understand. Instead, he moved one paw to grip the blunt edge, his fingers passing through the hollow heart of R'Thrys. Facing Deomorg, he turned to the side, leaned backward, shifting his weight to one knee, lifting R'Thrys above his head. The length of R'Thrys swept downward, along his outstretched leg, with the blade facing upward, giving off radiant light, while the shadows gathered across the red knight, whose every movement was darkened with unwanted sorrow.

Deomorg stared. He _knew _that stance. He had seen it eighteen times before and had named it the 'Triangle Stance', where the position of body and weapon formed a triangle with the ground. When the eighteen previous wielders of R'Thrys had used _that_ stance, it had shattered his magical barriers, torn through his enchantments, and unmade his legions of undead... but _this_ stance was something _more! _

**"You..." **he said, comprehension dawning on him, making his dread voice quaver, **"...you are the first one..."**

Hyper Lazer passed judgement. "The cycle of reincarnation ended: OBLIVION!"

**"...to **_**obey...**_**"**

In that small act of obedience, the cosmic string that chained Deomorg to this universe was irrevocably severed. The very stuff of divinity was snuffed out; his portfolio of Death was canceled; that part of the universe was freed from his dominion. You see, the seven planets the trio had cremated were not his only resources. He had a million acolytes on a million planets scattered across his home galaxy. Even with his seven planetary phylacteries annihilated, he had innumerable evil clerics ready and willing to resurrect him, so that he could start over - no matter how many phylacteries were destroyed. However, with his cosmic string cut, there was no power in heaven, earth or hell that could bring him back to life. His divine portfolios were riven from him. He would not even reincarnate. His next death would be his end.

Hyper Lazer ran forward, released his paw from the blunt edge and thrust with his other arm, piercing Deomorg through his very soul. The lich did not scream because he had lost the ability to do so. He died in silence, and the universe knew him no more. His matrix of magical energy - one of the most potent in the universe - was dispelled in a heartbeat, exploding with a furor that shook the foundations of Mobius. The Nightmare Chains fell apart, freeing so many souls in a rush of wind that, for a moment, a tornado of wisps blotted out the Sun. Then they were gone, and all was well.


	9. Aftermath

Lazer returned to normal, his Chaos armour drifting away like red fireflies. Sonic reverted to his natural blue colour while Tails' super robot shrank to its normal size. They then saw the full extent of Lazer's terrible injuries. Without his Hyper mode, he had nothing left to sustain him but willpower, and that had already been spent.

"We got you, Red," Sonic said, supporting Lazer with Tails' help.

"Mr. Lazer, what are we going to do? You forfeited your Chaos healing factor long ago."

That memory flashed across Lazer's eyes, and the reason. Despite the pain, he chuckled. "To be with... Rebecca, and... die with her naturally. Better than eternity alone."

"Red, we're warping directly to the hospital."

Tails held up his Emerald-woven glove. "Chaos Control!"

The white walls of the emergency ward surrounded them. Almost everyone there - patients, nurses and doctors - screamed and dropped their instruments. Sonic alone warped out. A few seconds later, he warped back in with Rebecca. By that time Tails had, with a nurse's help, placed Lazer on a gurney.

Rebecca cradled Lazer's paw in her own, running with the rolling gurney and medical staff. "Lazer!"

He smiled a handsome smile. "Hey baby. How's the baby?"

She didn't fall for his charm. "He's ready to come out and meet you. Live that long!"

His bloody paw touched her cheek. It did not mar her beauty in the slightest. They made eye contact, his obsidian reflected in her smoky quartz. There was strength and joy in that shared gaze, a fierce passion for life. "Yes dear," he said, then fell unconscious.

Lazer spent the next few hours in surgery. Sally came by with Paula, so Sonic and Tails spent a good few minutes crushed against Sally and wept upon. Sally wept not only in relief but for Rebecca and her belly, both of whom were pressed against the observation window. Paula played with her daddy and uncle, reminding them that she was important, too.

The surgeon met the five of them in the waiting room. He took off his mask, blinked a few times, then said, "That was the most difficult surgery I ever did in my life."

"Is he gonna make it?"

"Make it? He's asleep! Blissful! Heart like a hammer. We just had to give him lots of blood and close his entry and exit wounds. Meanwhile I have bent syringes and scalpels. Skin like hard leather and muscles of iron; we had to use diamond tools to excavate the shrapnel and suture him."

Rebecca and her belly sagged with relief. Sally was ready and held her up long enough to find a chair. Then she called for a nurse because her little red hedgehog friend was quite ready to give birth.


	10. New Life

Thus Ashlar entered the world while his father slept. Rebecca was not alone during the process, however; Sally provided a paw to hold and shoulder to cry on. When Rebecca's parents got the news, they drove straight to the hospital and - at last - began the sacred tradition of fussing over their daughter and grandson. Rebecca's dojo students all visited, crowding the maternity ward, bringing gifts and hugs and kisses for both her and Ashlar. They stayed for hours at a time, congratulating her and assuring her that 'Sensei's husband will wake up soon'.

One week passed. During that time, Tails was fast asleep for five days. Sonic stayed with his wife and daughter, both of whom insisted that they watch over Tails. Lazer slumbered serenely for two days. Rebecca and Ashlar had their own bed beside him at that point; she had refused to set foot outside of the hospital as long as her husband was there.

When he awoke, Lazer turned his head to see his wife and child. Though he was a veteran warrior who had supped full of horrors, the moment he looked into his son's bright new eyes - which were the same as his - the weight of the ages slid off his shoulders. He sniffed his son's head and the darkness was gone. His rough paws felt the slight weight of his son and sorrow surrendered her pale throne to the rising sun of joy. He heard the burbling noises Ashlar made and knew peace.

"My son!" Lazer said, causing the springs in his eyes to overflow. "My son."

Meanwhile, Sally nudged Sonic. "Why weren't you that happy when you first saw Paula?"

Sonic kissed his daughter's head, then grinned at his wife. "I'm just a regular guy."

Lazer recuperated in bed, regaling everyone there with the sad story that was Deomorg's former life. Lazer got his sutures removed at the end of the week, then was declared fit to leave hospital.

After seeing his wife and son home, he met the guys outside. They warped back to the battlefield they had left seven days ago.

There was aurora borealis in the sky. They stood rapt, wondering at its myriad colours... then it began to fall all around them. Sonic blinked, looking to the glowing ribbons in the heavens. Tails held out his paws, where sparkling droplets danced among his fingers.

It was raining magic.

"He's gone," Tails said, his brain, muscles and fur still aching with the awful tension of seventeen sleepless days. "No longer do his whispers crawl within my skull."

Lazer tilted his head. There was something on the ground. He knelt, lifting the amulet. It popped open, showing a family portrait of the late Deo, his wife and their three children. They were all smiling.

"You carried this with you all this time."

There was that foreign grief again. Had he not dealt justice? Had he not satisfied the law? Why this strange distress? He closed his fist and, such was his affinity with R'Thrys, the amulet burned in holy flames even though the greatsword was nowhere nearby.

"Welcome to the end."

The ashes dispersed through the air, then mixed with the magic rain, which soaked into the soil. Lazer wiped liquid magic from his eyes, then looked around for the first time since arriving here. He recognised the Singing Mountains in the distance.

"We're in Xadra. More specifically, the epicentre of the blast in Adrax City. The lich... he must have seen what happened here... seen my life story, as I saw his. He was the one who brought us back to Mobius."

Tails gave Lazer a searching look. "He can't come back, right?"

Lazer shook his head. "The Throne's decree is final."

That pensive look was still on Tails' face. Lazer noticed.

"Something else on your mind?"

"Mr. Lazer, when you broke free, your sword was casting both light and shadow. Was it tainted?"

Sonic slouched nearby, but his ears perked up.

Lazer smiled. He placed a reassuring paw on Tails' shoulder and said, "Rebecca explained to me, that darkness was sacred long before sin entered the world."

"Are those plants?"

Both swiveled their heads toward Sonic. He was pointing at small green shoots that blanketed the ground.

Lazer went to them, lost strength in his knees, then sank into the mud. He scooped up a black clod with tiny plants growing out of it.

"They're not undead. They're alive. They're growing. They're healthy. I can feel them across the land!"

While Lazer shed manly tears, Sonic and Tails remembered the previous war with Thanatos, during which R'Thrys burned away the nuclear fog enveloping this country. Its divine fire could destroy _anything, _even nuclear fallout, but why were these plants here? Surely the flames had purged the soil?

"No way is the magic rain causing this. He didn't have the ability to give life, or heal the living," said Tails.

"Maybe you're wrong," Sonic said. "What do you think, Red?"

He wiped his eyes, cleared his throat. "This is another mystery for me to solve." He found the strength to stand up. "Let's go home. When Rebecca and Ashlar see this..."

"You'll reclaim Xadra! Colonise it!" Tails shouted, happy despite his exhaustion. Such was the boundless energy of youth.

Lazer shrugged. "That idea holds promise, but you guys are our family now. Our home is with you, and everyone else in New Mobotropolis."

"Let's juice," Sonic said, jerking his thumb westward over the ocean.

The trio looked out over the ocean, where the magic rain was making rainbow waves. The sun was setting, casting yellow fire from the horizon. There were flashes of red, blue and orange light, then only the plants remained, the arcane downpour painting their leaves strange colours.

888 THE END 888


End file.
